


Waiting for Daylight

by bluejay_unit



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, Gen, Ghost Sickness, Mild Language, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-13
Updated: 2016-02-13
Packaged: 2018-05-20 01:12:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5987188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluejay_unit/pseuds/bluejay_unit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam gets the curse equivalent of ghost sickness. It brings up some stuff he (almost) thought he'd forgotten about. At least he's not waiting it out alone.</p><p>This includes a pretty detailed descrition of what is basically an anxiety attack. If that would be triggering or make things harder, then this is not the fic for you. However, if some winchester-ly camaraderie would help, read on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waiting for Daylight

Normally, Sam could handle quite a lot of pain. He’s broken bones (from toes to wrists to ribs) and he’s had more gashes bleed and scar and fade than he could count. Not to mention all the flus, stomach viruses, migraines and colds one typically picked up from living on the road 24/7.

But this was something different.

Sam sighed, letting out another long, slow, and still shaky breath. He could feel Dean’s eyes cut to him as soon as he couldn’t hold back and let his fingers start to drum rapidly on the side of his paperback. He’d been staring at the same page for 20 minutes anyway.

Damn stupid witches. They were the only monsters they hunted that had such an indignant sense of poetic justice. The one they’d hunted earlier that day had apparently been insulted that they’d initially thought she was a vengeful spirit. Wanting credit for the havoc and destruction she’d caused, she’d blasted Sam with the curse equivalent of ghost sickness. At first, Sam hadn’t felt any different. Shaken, and adrenaline-pumping, but otherwise unharmed. But by the time they’d packed up the car, driven through three counties looking for a good hotel, checked in, and his heart rate _still_ wasn’t down, then he knew something was wrong.

Dean, having had ghost sickness himself, was mother-henning harder than he had anytime in Sam’s recent memory. He’d actually found a nice hotel for once, way out of their normal price range. He kept shooting worried glances his way if Sam so much as twitched. Funnily enough, Dean almost looked more anxious than Sam.

And that was what Sam couldn’t get away from, as he lay there trying to will his pulse to slow, was the _irony_ of it all. He was safe, as much as he’d ever been in a comfortable bed, a mural of sigils lining the walls with a meticulous salt line bordering the room, and a brother that wouldn’t let him out of his sight for longer than it took to go to the bathroom. And yet, fear swirled heavy in his stomach, he felt jittery, and his heart wouldn’t stop pounding in his ears.

Dean looked up from the stack of books he was combing through, researching a cure for the curse. “You alright Sam? You need anything?”

A stuffy “I’m fine,” rolled off his tongue before he consciously chose to answer at all. His brother both saw through the common lie and let it go (momentarily) with one barely perceptible nod. Sam returned his eyes to the page and attempted to read the same paragraph yet again.

* * *

 

Sam restlessly turned over onto his side, and shoved a pillow over his head. He’d long since abandoned his book, hoping instead to just sleep. But since clearing his mind for long enough to pass out seemed to take _more_ concentration than reading, that clearly wasn’t happening. It was only eleven and he could already tell that sleep just wasn’t in the cards tonight.

He cast around for something to distract him from the ceaseless adrenaline surging through him. His mind settled on the sound of Dean, from the other bed, tapping a pen against a book, lost in thought.

_Tap, tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap._

It was just a noise, one that he normally wouldn’t have even noticed. But somehow it wormed its way into his consciousness. He fidgeted again, trying to ignore it.

_Tap, tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap._

The swirling in his stomach increased with the rapid sound. It felt like what in a more benign setting could be called getting butterflies. But he was a hunter! He’d faced things most people never even had nightmares about; he didn’t get _butterflies_. Nonetheless, his skin crawled like it did on a hunt, every sense heightened with increased awareness of his surroundings. The extra information flooded his brain with panic. God, he just wanted to _sleep._

_Tap, tap, tap._

“Dean,” he mumbled, giving up feigning sleep and opening his eyes. “Could you…not…” he gestured in the direction of the pen, embarrassed.

“What?” Dean looked up, startled.

“The pen.”

“Oh! Shit, yeah, sorry, I didn’t even notice. Do you want me to kill the light too? I can keep reading by flashlight.” 

And it was this more than anything, Dean’s sincere response to a complaint that would definitely have started a scathing petty argument on a normal day, that made Sam feel like he was suddenly, irreparably fragile.

“No, man, ‘s okay,” he muttered.

Dean must have heard something in his tone, because a quiet minute later he got up and sat next to Sam on his bed.

“Sam?”

“Hm?” He sat up.

“I haven’t found a cure, “ he began softly, “But I’ve found lore about the curse she hit you with, and every source says as long as the witch is toast, the curse can’t last past sunrise.”

Sam pretended not to notice as Dean fussed ineffectually with the blankets in order to scoot close enough to sit shoulder to shoulder with him.

“So it looks like we have to wait it out, but at least it’s only till morning, right?”

Sam honestly tried to muster up some enthusiasm. “Great,” he said.

“I’d give you meds, but apparently drugs only make this thing worse.”

And if Sam let out a marginally undignified whimper at that, it totally wasn’t his fault.

Dean gave him a pat on the shoulder as he stood up. “Just try to get some shut-eye.” He went to turn the light off to go to bed. “It’ll be over before you know it.”

* * *

  

Sam turned over in bed for what felt like the millionth time that night. He tried to force himself to relax, to convince himself if he only lay still, he’d eventually fall asleep. But he began to doubt it more and more as the hours ticked by.          

He just wanted this to be over so he could move on with his life. If only he could pause the curse for a minute or two, just to gather himself, he’d be okay. But as it was, Sam couldn’t handle this anymore, he just couldn’t. The thought crossed his mind that he’d take a broken bone over this awful, constant dread.

It was just too much like being in the cage, he realized. Perhaps more importantly, it was just too much like coming out of the cage, and still seeing Lucifer everywhere, even though he wasn’t there. He had gotten out of the cage, hadn’t he? He could remember focusing on the scar on his hand, and Dean assuring him that Lucifer wasn’t really there. But in the dark, otherworldly three AM stillness of the motel room, those memories suddenly felt a lot less real than the taunting eyes of Lucifer.

It sounded crazy, but what if Lucifer _had_ made him think he’d escaped for years, only to reveal he’d never left again?

 _That’s exactly the kind of thing that son of a bitch would do,_ Sam thought.

And just like that, Sam was suddenly, absolutely certain that’s what had happened. Now positive that his surroundings were a hallucination, Sam looked over at Dean in the other bed. From here, he appeared only as a dark outline, his chest rising and falling slowly in sleep. If none of this was real, and Lucifer could pull the plug on this pipe dream at any moment, then this could be the last time he ever saw his brother.

Some vague, distant part of Sam’s consciousness knew that this was absurd, that it was the curse making him think this way, and that he was quickly spiraling out of control. But this was hardly a comfort, and anyway the logic was barely discernable under the deafening white-noise of fear.

Something welled up in Sam, and he felt his throat closing up, as if someone had a fist around his neck, squeezing slowly. He fought to throw the blankets off him in a mindless panic.

His instinct was pushing him to _run, go, escape—_ but there wasn’t anywhere to go. He rushed to the window, hoping the sight of reality outside would have some affect on him. But it was pointless, if he’d really never left the cage, there’d be no escaping now.

It was too much, too overwhelming to contemplate. He sank to the floor, and found himself sitting up against his bed on the opposite side, waiting for the room to disappear and for the fire and blood of hell to take its place.

Across the room, he heard bedsprings squeak and quiet feet hit the floor. He must’ve woken Dean up. Sam knew it wouldn’t be long before Dean noticed he wasn’t asleep.

“Sam?” came his sleepy voice. Dean got up to check the bathroom, clearly empty with the light out and door ajar. He went back to Sam’s bed.

“Sam?!” he called again, more frantic now.

Sam knew he was committing the Winchester cardinal sin—to let his brother wake up to an empty bed across the room and not answer his calls. But when he tried to speak all that came out were sharp inhales and quiet sobs.

Quiet footsteps approached him, and Dean sat down on the floor next to him. Wordlessly, he smoothed a hand over Sam’s shoulder and wrapped him in a hug.

Something in Sam broke, clean and satisfying and all at once, and he let out a sob into his brother’s shoulder and felt himself collapse.

“I’m sorry,” he got out, “I know it’s just the curse, but I couldn’t, I couldn’t breathe and I thought…”

 _I thought I was back in hell_ , he didn’t say.

His certainty in the delusion had gone, and embarrassment about his reaction had begun to set in, but it was still overshadowed by the crushing weight of helplessness.

He hadn’t made it more than two words before Dean hushed him. “Shh, Sam, it’s all right, you don’t have to explain,” he whispered.

Sam drew in deep lungfuls of air and let it out in shattered sighs.

They stayed like that for several long minutes, Sam sinking into the safety of his brother’s embrace as Dean gently brushed a hand across his back, the other hand warmly cupping the back of his neck to keep him still and close. Dean listened intently for Sam’s breathing to return to normal.

Sam sighed, feeling the tension leave him. He could still feel the presence of the curse, some instinctual jitters remained, but for the moment, it had abated. His whole body felt robbed of strength, he felt gross from crying, his eyes felt heavy, and his head ached, but damn did he feel better than he had a few minutes ago. He listened to Dean’s heartbeat, steady and slow, and felt his own pulse calm to match it.

“Guess sleep’s not really happening tonight, huh?” Dean asked, as soon as the room had gone completely silent. “That’s alright. We have the room for another night, so we just gotta wait this thing out and then crash in the morning.”

It took a while for Sam to process Dean’s words. He sat up to look at him. Dean made room for him to sit up, but kept an arm draped lazily around his shoulders.

“Wait, are you saying…? You know you don’t have to stay up with me. I’m fine,” Sam said.

“Sam, I’m not about to go back to bed and leave you here like this.”

Sam felt his frustration grow, but Dean’s tone wasn’t even argumentative, it was just as gentle as it had been before.

“Dean, that’s ridiculous. You _can_ sleep, so _sleep_.”

“I’m not going back to bed, and that’s all there is to it.”

Sam didn’t want to be relieved by that, but he kinda was.

Dean spoke up again. “Man, if that stupid-ass witch wasn’t already dead, I’d _enjoy_ killing her again.”

Sam smiled, not at all surprised that the phrase felt as good to hear as an ‘I love you’. It didn’t matter a bit that the words were different. He knew what they meant.

True to his word, Dean didn’t leave his side once until day broke. He sat beside him, sometimes in silence, sometimes chatting to distract him for the next several hours. Both brothers felt the curse break as they looked out the motel windows and watched the grey dawn wash in.

 

 


End file.
